A few months ago, Russian officials were adamant that pirate websites should be blocked at the ISP level to combat piracy. Like many other governments before them, the Russians now admit that these measures are not as effective as they would like them to be.
Vladimir Putin himself recently stated, during a meeting with members of the Federation Council, the lower house of parliament, that the legislation enacted last summer and dubbed the “Russian SOPA” had failed to fulfill its goals.
"Even after using these solutions to protect intellectual property in the film industry, recent analysis has shown that it is not working as effectively as we expected," Putin said.
His statement contradicts a previous one from the Russian government. Last January, they said that the law was, in fact, having the intended effect and that the number of Internet users purchasing legal content had already increased by 30%.
The fact that blocking access to torrent websites didn't work is not surprising, given that users can access them through other means, such as VPNs and proxies.
The point here is that the music and film industries prefer to invest in lobbying efforts rather than trying to provide ways for users to access legal content at affordable prices, a much more effective method than suspending torrent sites, as countless studies have shown.
